A year ago, twenty-five students passed a rigorous selection process to participate in a one-year internship at Central South University in Changsha, China, as part of a joint project between SFU and the company “Polyus.”
The key criteria for selecting participants were: high academic performance, proficiency in English, and a desire to pursue a career in the industry. The program was conducted in English, but students also studied Chinese—by the end of the program, they were expected to achieve fluency in spoken Chinese.
SFU’s industry partner, Polus, handled all organizational matters: paperwork, visa support, travel, and housing. Over the course of the year, students studied 14 engineering disciplines and mastered automation technologies in the mining industry.
A digital engineer is a specialist who designs, models, and tests products or objects in a virtual environment, replacing physical prototypes with digital twins. They accelerate development, reduce costs, and work with cutting-edge software.
The program participants—second- and third-year SFU students—gained in-depth knowledge of automated process control systems. This field is particularly important for “Polyus,” which is implementing remote control of production processes. At mining sites and gold processing plants, the arrival of new technologies is gradually reducing the number of on-site staff; many processes are managed remotely, and plans are in place to entrust the configuration and maintenance of these systems to the engineers of the future.
Ivan Shumilov is studying metallurgy at SFU. In China, he is learning how to program devices to automate and optimize the processes of extracting metal from ore:
“In China, the integration of theory and practice is very well-coordinated: we’d study a topic theoretically, and then we’d do lab work on it, where we’d explore all the nuances. We also had an instructor for microcontrollers and embedded systems who organized gifts for the whole group: he handed out kits containing a microcontroller and general peripherals. And at the end of the semester, he asked everyone to build a project and present it.”
In addition to their studies, the students explored Chinese culture. After completing the second semester, the participants will embark on an industrial internship—all 25 of them will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge at Polyus’s actual production facilities.
Anastasia Avlasko, who first studied in the “Polyus Class” and then joined the program, highlights its value:
“All of “Polyus”’s programs are great because they help high school and college students immerse themselves in the mining and metallurgy industry and understand what specialists actually do. We regularly participate in internships, interact with specialists, and observe their work processes. It’s very interesting.”
The “Digital Engineer” program, a collaboration between SFU and “Polyus,” is unique in Russia. Graduates can expect internships at “Polyus” production facilities and guaranteed employment.
SFU and Central South University are actively developing other educational initiatives and planning further collaboration. This summer, a delegation from Central South University paid an official visit to SFU and invited colleagues from Siberia to visit China. According to representatives of Central South University, SFU students demonstrated an excellent level of preparation and dedication to their studies.
The 20th International Summer Space School, “Promising Space Technologies and Experiments in Space,” concluded with the presentation of project proposals. The participants included 18 international students and scientists from Brazil, India, Mexico, Peru, Tunisia, Iran, and Lebanon. Upon completion of the program, they received certificates and credentials confirming their professional development.
Egor Musin, an associate professor at Moscow Polytechnic University, has won the Chinese Ambassador to Russia Award in the “Biomedicine” category. The awards ceremony was held at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Russian Federation.
The visit by international partners took place as part of the celebrations marking LETI’s 140th anniversary. The meeting participants discussed opportunities to expand cooperation, increase the number of joint programs, and boost the number of international students.
Through their participation in the academic mobility program, the students gained international experience and the opportunity to work on a real-world case study.
A blog tour aimed at attracting students from Algeria and Indonesia to Russia has kicked off in Tomsk. Journalists and bloggers from these countries are visiting leading Russian universities. The program in Tomsk began with a visit to Tomsk State University. Participants got a glimpse of the modern university environment, met with students, and toured engineering laboratories—including those for chemistry, implant design, and BAS programming, among others.
